WHO knows how many hot-water systems Kevin Sheedy has sold, but it is surely just a steaming drop in a bucket compared to the dreams, hopes, memberships and premierships that the game's marketing whiz has peddled to the football public for 27 years.

Martians and marshmallows, jacket wavers and blockbusters — Sheedy has been a hell of a salesman.

In 1996, the Boston Consultancy group went through Windy Hill, reviewing all of Essendon's practices and personnel. Many of the structures were antiquated, football had moved on and Peter Jackson was brought in to be the club's chief executive. As he sat beside Sheedy yesterday, Jackson remembered the consultants' verdict: "You've only got one person in this club who knows anything about marketing. Unfortunately, he's the head coach."

A dozen years on, there are few who wouldn't agree that the Essendon Football Club was fortunate to have such a gifted salesman.

"Sheedy almost wrote the book about how to promote the club via the individual," media buyer and marketing expert Harold Mitchell said yesterday.

"When he waved that jacket above his head, that goes down in Australian history alongside Hawkie at the America's Cup celebrations. It is absolutely iconic."

Sheedy started in an era when coaches delivered verbal sprays, ran training and did little else. Not him. His growth as a club leader coincided with a revolution. It is now assumed that coaches will be media friendly, network with sponsors, sell memberships and be tactical experts.

In lean years, he peddled hope; when champions fell, he enthused about youngsters. When greats retired, he tried to coax them back — often successfully. He took it on himself to sell his own club, but also the sport in general, once enraging soccer supporters by criticising their game before an international rules clash with Ireland.

Sheedy understood that what he said in a pre-game press conference could not only add spice to a match, it could drag extra punters through the door. "Kevin has been our foremost promoter and salesman over nearly three decades, working tirelessly across the breadth of Australia to develop our game," AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said yesterday.

He concocted rivalries, or at least exaggerated them, and he did it with punchlines that became slogans. In 1998, he drew blood by calling senior Kangaroos "marshmallows". When Roos fans took offence and pelted him with the sweets, Sheedy loved it, declaring the rematch "the marshmallow game".

The veteran coach understood the marketing man's tools, but for all the staged conflict and publicity gee-ups, it was often the spur-of-the-moment decisions — waving that jacket, or complaining about Martians and seagulls in an attempt to avoid AFL censorship — that quickly entered into the game's vocabulary.

"Anyone who does those things does them instinctively — you can't plan it," Mitchell said. "He connects with the people and he did it so well over the years."

Jackson said yesterday that Sheedy had put the club's brand — another modern concept — on the map and given Essendon a national profile. Ever the showman, Sheedy couldn't help an aside: "What's a marketing manager get at an AFL club?" he asked. "A lot less than a head coach," was Jackson's reply.

Mitchell said Sheedy was the best communicator the game had seen because he could strike a chord with ordinary people and with the media. He said the Essendon brand was now "all powerful" as a result. Only Collingwood rivals the Bombers for nationwide support.

Sheedy pronounced confidently yesterday that the media and public did not really know him. He may have had an instinctive feel for the sharp line or story but, for him, it was not about showing off. "I'm a fan's sort of coach," he said. "When I talk to the media it is about talking to the fans because you people relay that message."

He was still at it yesterday, trying to get the faithful fired up about the chances of beating Adelaide this weekend. Against West Coast in Perth, he wants to see those Eagles scarves whirling in the air. There were also clashes to come with Hawthorn and Richmond. "There will be a line in the mud against Hawthorn," Sheedy joked. A new slogan, a new headline, with barely a thought.